IT Staffing, Recruiting & Hiring News

Scala is objectively harder than some other programming languages. As a result, companies look closely at candidates before making a hiring decision, trying to ensure that the job seeker genuinely has the required skills, experiences, and capabilities.

Showcasing your talent is essential if you want to land a new Scala engineer role. However, you also need to make sure that you are shining a spotlight on the right areas if you truly want to stand out from the competition. If you're going to be the Scala engineer that everyone wants to hire, here’s what you need to bring to the table.

If you prefer having a broad scope when it comes to your work responsibilities and the ability to touch a variety of technologies and systems, a career as a systems integration engineer may be ideal. Professionals in this field focus on how the entire system works together, not just a single piece, making the tasks highly varied.

Succeeding as a systems integration engineer means you need to be technically well-rounded and have strong soft skills. If you want to excel in these roles, here are four essential skills you need to bring to the table.

If you work in security risk management, the idea of becoming a lead may be exciting. After all, it is a logical step forward in your career and often serves as a springboard into higher management-level roles.

In order to become a security risk management lead, you need to bring the right combinations of education, experience, and skills to the table. If you are ready to find out if you have what it takes to make the leap, here’s what you need to know.

For many, the technology field is incredibly enticing. However, if you do not have a Bachelor’s degree, you may assume that there are not many options you can explore. In reality, you may just need to take a look at a “new collar” job if you want to make the leap into tech without formal education.

Many people have touted that taking a break from social media actually improved their moods. In fact, one company even offered people $100,000 in exchange for giving up their smartphone for a year, a move that would certainly lower a person’s use of social media.

Thanks to data scandals and news about propaganda appearing on social media pages, interest in digital detoxes seems to be growing. However, even if other people say that giving up social media was a good move, does that mean it will make you happier? Before you ditch your accounts, here is what you need to know.

You Will Have More Time

In 2018, one study said that the average American adult spent around 45 minutes each day (that’s more than 5 hours a week) on social media. Another estimated showed that the average person will spend over five years of their lives on the platforms.

By giving up social media, even for a short time, you are almost guaranteed to end up with more time for other activities. Often, people spend more time with friends and family by going on a social media detox, something that can be incredibly beneficial for relationship building or maintenance and, ultimately, happiness.

You Avoid Negative Influences

Social media is not always good for the psyche. There are a lot of negative influences a person may encounter when on popular sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube, and taking a break means you eliminate them from your daily routine.

For example, reading Facebook posts about another person’s success can actually make you feel worse, triggering the jealousy if you think they have more than you. Posts depicting perfect bodies, lives, vacations, or even meals may leave you disheartened, worried that your life does not measure up. This can create a sense of pressure - fearing that you need to somehow do better if you want to be successful - even if your life is pretty enviable in its own right.

Political infighting is another influence that isn’t always beneficial to your well-being. Even if you do not take part in the discussions, watching friends and family members tear each other down for their politics can be painful. Even crossing paths with the random rantings of someone you do not know well can be damaging.

Ultimately, your brain reacts to every post you see, and not all of the responses are beneficial. By taking a break from social media, you get to remove these influences from your life, and many people who do report that they are happier for it. Plus, many of them do not miss social media as much as they expected to, and some even choose to keep their consumption lower after the fact as a result.

Now, there is no guarantee that taking a break from social media will make you happier. However, it is an easy experiment to run in your own life, and the risk of doing so is essentially zero.

Looking for a New Job? Contact the Recruiters at The Armada Group!

If you’d like to learn more, the professionals at The Armada Group can help. Contact us with your questions today and see how our social media expertise can benefit you.

As the labor market only seems to get tighter each day, companies are increasingly having to focus on retention. Keeping your most talented cybersecurity professionals on board is a must. Otherwise, you are stuck having to recruit a replacement, something that can be an incredibly difficult task in today’s job market landscape.

Luckily, there are things you can do to make your company more attractive to your current employees. If you want to make sure your best and brightest cybersecurity talent stay onboard, here are some tips to help you improve retention.

Offer the Right Working Arrangement

An increasing number of IT professionals are looking for more flexibility from their employer. The wish to work from home has made remote positions increasingly popular. Similarly, a desire for work-life balance may lead some skilled professionals to forgo traditional, full-time work.

If you want to keep highly skilled cybersecurity professionals on your team, then you need to consider these needs and accommodate them. For example, a telecommuting program that allows employees to work from home at least a few days each week can help. Adding a few part-time positions to your staff could attract skilled candidates who would otherwise turn to the gig economy, ensuring they can achieve the right level of balance.

While these options may be dramatic shifts from the usual paradigm, they could be essential if you are struggling with retention.

Create Opportunities for Growth and Advancement

Cybersecurity has a reputation for being highly analytical, and even somewhat repetitive. As a result, it makes the career path as a whole less enticing, decreasing the odds that people will stay in the field.

However, by offering your team chances to grow and advance, you can help them explore more of what the cybersecurity field actually involves. This can increase engagement, making the career more viable and intriguing. Plus, it adds a level of variety to the day, ensuring boredom is rare and decreasing the odds that your workers will burn out.

Embrace New Technologies

Technologies like machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), and automation can make certain cybersecurity tasks easier to manage. The solutions can handle more repetitive portions of the work and are incredibly effective at certain kinds of detection, at times even outpacing their human counterparts.

By embracing these technologies, you can remove those duties from your employees’ plates. Then, they can spend more time on engaging work, increasing interest in the roles and improving job satisfaction.

Plus, you will be viewed as an innovative company. This can be incredibly enticing to cybersecurity professionals, increasing the odds that you will be seen as an employer of choice.

Are You Looking to Add to Your Cybersecurity Team? Contact The Armada Group!

By following the tips above, you can keep your most talented cybersecurity professionals onboard. If you would like to learn more about improving retention, the team at The Armada Group can help. Contact us to speak with one of our retention experts today and see how our knowledge can benefit you.

The digital news landscape has changed dramatically over recent years. Previously, increased interest on the part of readers allowed sites like BuzzFeed and Huffington Post to thrive, as demand for their content made creating more profitable. Social media played a massive role in the success of digital news media, as the sharing of articles and posts by readers enhanced a company’s visibility, often for much less money than traditional advertising mechanisms.

However, the landscape has shifted dramatically. Everything from Facebook’s pledge to focus more on posts from friends and family to rising interest in other mechanisms, like video, is playing a role. Buzzfeed ultimately decided to lay off around 15 percent of their staff as they prepare to adjust their model.

The Rise of the Online Video Star

Sites like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube have made posting videos about as easy as possible. As a result, nearly anyone could potentially try their hand at being a star. Plus, the masses were becoming increasingly enamored with video, often favoring it over other mechanisms, like written posts and static images.

As a result, many companies began to pivot, looking for ways to profit in the video category while shifting away from other approaches. This was especially true once the digital news sections of many companies began to become less profitable, decreasing their cost-effectiveness from a business perspective.

Facebook as a Publisher

Many digital news organizations relied on social media to gain readership. Facebook was often a preferred platform, but a variety of revelations – including the Cambridge Analytica data scandal and presence of Russian fake news sites – lead many users to doubt the validity of what was being posted. Additionally, Facebook itself was forced to pivot in response, altering what forms of content could be promoted by digital news organizations, limiting organic reach, and changing what users would see on their feeds.

Further, some users began to pull away from platforms like Facebook. They began to doubt the social media giant on a primal level, and that impacted how many people would be exposed to posts from digital news organizations. Others started to question the validity of nearly all digital news sources, as uncertainty about who is fake became an increasing concern.

The changes on Facebook’s side made digital news less profitable, and some digital news organizations ultimately did not survive. Skeptical readers also began pulling away, further harming readership numbers and impacting profits.

Is Digital News in Trouble?

In reality, digital news likely is not in trouble across the board. However, that does not mean companies will not need to change to survive in the shifting landscape, and those who refuse may disappear, either voluntarily or when readership dwindles to a point that they are no longer viable.

Those who change and adapt will likely remain, at least for the next few years. In the end, it is not unlike any other business segment where those who refuse to keep up with the times fade into obscurity while those who embrace the need for change have a chance to remain strong.

If you would like to learn more, the team at The Armada Group can help. Contact us with questions today and see how our expertise can benefit you.

Many of the best IT project managers on the planet share certain traits. Usually, this is expressed as a set of habits, all of them honed to help increase their odds of success in their roles.

By working to make these habits part of your reality, you can thrive in most IT project manager roles. Here are the ones that should be on every current or aspiring project manager’s radar.

Dedication to the Process

Today, nearly every project is governed by a methodology. These provide clear steps to make sure a project is a success, ensuring that critical points are not overlooked and that everything is addressed in an ideal order or at the proper time.

Leading project managers understand that following the process is important; so much so that the majority make it a habit. Now, this does not mean that an approach cannot be adapted based on the project at hand. Instead, it is the automatic urge to use that process as a framework, and a desire only to deviate when the situation actually demands it.

Acting with Integrity at All Times

For the best IT project managers, integrity is a core part of their personality. They never hesitate to be honest when working with their team and strive to be fair at all times.

Without integrity, even the most skilled project team may struggle. A lack of trust can be incredibly damaging to a group’s dynamic, leading to increased levels of conflict, more misunderstanding, and even rising error numbers – all of which can lead to a project’s failure.

If integrity is not a habit, becoming a leading project manager will be incredibly challenging, so it is wise to make it a focus early in one’s career.

Preparation is a Priority

If a project is going to be a success, it needs a strong foundation. Preparation is the key to creating a winning environment, ensuring risk is properly examined, contingency plans are at the ready, and all necessary information is gathered before any work begins.

Neglecting the preparation phase of a project increases the odds of failure. While this does not mean you have to focus entirely on the minutia before getting started, it does mean having all of your proverbial ducks in a row as early in the process as possible.

By embracing the habits above, you can increase your odds of becoming one of the best IT project managers around. Not only can this help you build a strong and lucrative career, but it is also intrinsically rewarding, as your success rate could skyrocket.

Looking for a New Project Manager Role? Contact The Armada Group!

If you would like to learn more about what it takes to thrive as a project manager or are seeking out new opportunities, the team at The Armada Group can help. Contact us to speak with one of our knowledgeable staff members today and see how our project management expertise can benefit you.

While automation may be grabbing all of the headlines, manual quality assurance (QA) engineers are still critical for many companies who want to make sure that their software operates correctly. These professionals actually interact with the program as if they were the end user, following detailed test plans to make sure the areas being tested perform to the right standard.

If you want to become a top manual QA engineer, then you need to bring the right skills to the table. Here is what you need to know.

The Most Important Skills for Manual QA Engineers

Manual QA engineers need a wide variety of skills to thrive in their roles. Often, this includes having strong assessment skills as well as the ability to write detailed test cases, ensuring any testing goes forward properly and is incredibly thorough.

Experience with test case management tools, like Zephyr, is also a must. This ensures you can use these solutions effectively, allowing you to be more efficient in the position. Similarly, knowledge of browser-based software testing frameworks is beneficial, though may not be required at all companies.

Having the right soft skills can make a significant amount of difference in your level of success as well. For example, strong communication skills are crucial as you will need to share your findings with a variety of stakeholders along the way.

Similarly, being a self-starter and highly motivated can help you stand out as a top candidate, allowing you to rise to the top with greater ease. Being a team player is also valuable to employers, especially since a decent portion of the work can be collaborative in nature.

Finally, having knowledge of automation is usually beneficial. Even if your activities are predominately manual, automation is becoming increasing prevalent in the QA world, so being capable of using those technologies can help you future-proof your career and provide support outside of the manual testing arena.

Acquire Experience to Reach the Top

While starting by learning the skills listed above is smart, you will need to put your skills to work if you want to excel as a manual QA engineer. To put it simply, having some experience under your belt is essential if you want to reach the top of the manual QA engineering field. Typically, within three to five years, you can qualify for mid-level roles, giving you access to more lucrative opportunities. After that, you just need to keep acquiring experience to continue moving forward, refining your current skills, gaining new competencies, and showing that you are effective in these roles.

Are You Looking For a New Job? The Armada Group Can Help!

If you are interested in learning more about becoming a successful manual AQ engineer or are looking for a job opportunity in the field, the team at The Armada Group can help. Contact us to speak with one of our IT recruiters today and see how our QA expertise can benefit you.

For some, the idea of having a large salary is what drives them to pursue a particular line of work. If you are looking for a lucrative career path, then opting to become a database administrator (DBA) might be a wise move. Here’s what you need to know.

How Do You Become a Database Administrator?

In most cases, if you want to become a DBA, you need to start with formal education. Learning about database theory and design, the various programming languages, storage technologies, networking, and other required skills is usually best addressed while earning a college degree. Plus, most employers require at least a Bachelor’s from job candidates, it not a Master’s.

However, if you want to see if you would enjoy the work before signing up to earn a degree, there are a lot of online courses that can help you get started in database administration, allowing you to gain foundational skills and understanding before you commit. Just understand that these are often insufficient if you want to launch your career in the field, though they will help you get your feet wet.

Certifications can also boost your earnings potential. For example, getting certified in IBM or Oracle technologies can lead to higher salary offers.

Similarly, an understanding of related cloud technologies can be beneficial. Companies are increasingly shifting to the cloud to experience the cost-savings, have access to more resources or easier scalability, and even enhanced security.

A long-term willingness to learn is also essential. The world of database administration has changed dramatically over recent years thanks to the introduction of technologies like the cloud, Hadoop, and even improved analytics. If you are not willing to adapt to the changing landscape when the need arises, you will have trouble thriving in the field.

How Much Does a Database Administrator Make?

While DBA salaries can vary depending on the level of experience required, the size of the company, and the exact skill set the person needs to bring to the table, landing a six-figure position is not out of the question. In fact, the average DBA salary in San Francisco comes in right around the $100,000 mark, and those with substantial experience or in-demand skills can even earn close to $150,000.

Even entry-level DBA positions can come with livable salaries. Finding an offer around $60,000 with no more than the needed education is possible, especially in the Silicon Valley area.

Start Your Job Search with The Armada Group!

If you are interested in learning more about what it takes to become a database administrator or are looking for a new DBA job opportunity in the Silicon Valley area, the team at The Armada Group can help. Contact us speak with one of our IT recruiters today and see how our expertise can benefit you.